A ROSEBUD grandmother has delivered an 18,000-signature petition to the federal parliament calling for taxes to be introduced on plastic packaging.
On Thursday 30 March Pam Pitt took her petition to Canberra to hand it to David McElrea, chief of staff to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.
Pitt is the treasurer on the board of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Australia, a grassroots environmental group working to influence climate policy.
She says that as a grandmother, she is committed to leaving a better world for future generations and was pushed into action after the collapse of plastic recycling company REDcycle which had claimed to have diverted more than five million pieces of plastic from landfill since 2011.
Last year REDcycle was declared insolvent after failing to pay storage fees for the thousands of tonnes of plastics it had been storing around the country.
Pitt said the company’s problems highlighted the need for the government to support the recycling industry, and the need for manufacturers to make more responsible choices.
“It’s time to make a stand against the increasing use of plastic in Australia,” she said.
Pitt started the petition last year, but said it had taken months in the planning and to secure an appointment in Canberra for the presentation.
“I feel sick when I see the amount of plastic in the oceans. I’m angry that soft plastic has been stockpiled – they can’t find enough uses for the huge amounts collected. I hate that I don’t have the choice of sustainable types of packaging at the supermarket and retail outlets.”
Pitt said saving money at the expense of the environment should not be an option, with manufacturers currently choosing packaging on the basis of cost and profit.
“Plastic is cheap and the manufacturers have little regard to the impact on the environment and happily pass the responsibility of recycling to the end user,” she said.
“We need to make plastic less attractive to use. It is time that a tax was imposed at the point of import or manufacture of plastic. If plastic is more expensive, it will mean industry will look at other options.”
Pitt said governments should use the tax to subsidise sustainable or easily recyclable materials.
According to CleanUp Australia, about 13 per cent of plastics are recycled in Australia, despite the country generating more single-use plastic waste per capita than any other country.
Just two weeks ago, Coles, Woolworths and Aldi announced they were hoping to restart soft-plastics collection and recycling by the end of the year.
Pitt said her petition was “well received” in parliament and she was told there was a lot happening in the recycling space, as well as a global summit in April that Plibersek had been invited to.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 4 April 2023
